Mary Ellis' grave outside AMC. Lori. M. Nichols

In the back parking lot of a New Brunswick AMC stands a small grave plot. Few moviegoers notice the unassuming ‘Mary Ellis Grave,’ but how did this curiosity end up in our own backyard? 

Born in 1750, Mary Ellis was renowned in New Brunswick for protesting against construction on Livingston Avenue and for voting in city elections a hundred years before the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote. Ellis now owes her fame not to her protests, but to the local legend that surrounds her. The story goes that Ellis fell madly in love with a captain who was put out to sea. To await his return, she bought a plot of land atop Mount Hemlock overlooking the Raritan River. Ellis never forgot the captain and stayed at this property from 1813 until her death in 1828, likely of natural causes.

The location where Mary Ellis was buried would become a grave for seven other family members, with the last addition made in 1898. However, with a growing America came a pressing need for land, so the Ellis family sold the property. In the 1940s, it would be transformed into The Raritan Playland Amusement Park, followed by a Great Eastern Department Store in the 1960s. Not wanting to disturb the resting place, the owners opted to dig around the graves, constructing a massive 20-foot pit. Over time, it was filled with debris, and in owner John Burke’s words, became “a garbage dump instead of a place of reverence for the dead.” The plot was renovated in 2005 during the construction of The Edge at Raritan Heights, a housing development directly across from the grave site. Despite the efforts of business owners of the last 80 years, Mary Ellis and her family remain trapped in the parking lot of a near-abandoned mall.

The tombstone's engravement:

Name:

Years:

Relation:

Mildred Moody

1746-1816

Wife of Thomas Evans (possibly same?)

Thomas M. Evans

1790-1820

Husband of Mildred Moody

Eliza Mary White 

1792-1861

Wife of Thomas M. Evans

Isabelle Johanna Evans

1815-1901

Daughter of  Thomas M. Evans and Mildred Moody

Mary Ellis

1750-1827

Unmarried

Margaret Ellis

1767-1850

Sister of Mary Ellis?

Elizabeth Margaret Evans

1813-1898

Daughter of Thomas M. Evans and Mildred Moody